The Travelling Teacher: Brisbane, the second instalment

What’s it all about?

Last week I filled you in on my first instalment about my time in Brisbane. This week, I continue my time in Brisbane and tell you about some of the famous spots I visited in city, including one of many of the bridges in Brisbane. This place has the perfect mix of city and beach life…. This sounds bizarre, I know, so read on to find out more!

Brisbane

Originally, we had anticipated we would only need to spend a couple of weeks here, however we ended up absolutely LOVING it here and extended our stay to around just over a month.

However, as we had decided to extend our stay this meant we had to rebook the accommodation and our current accommodation had gone up in price so to save money, we had to move. This new accommodation was much further out of the city and made accessing the city more of a trek, which involved getting the bus rather than being able to walk. We both missed our previous accommodation!

Brisbane: Anzac Square War Memorial

As the weather was still being temperamental, we decided to take a walk around the city sights. With umbrellas at the ready, we took a short stroll to Anzac Square War memorial. Only a 10 minute walk from our accommodation it seemed to close to miss out on viewing this place.

This Memorial is dedicated to Australia’s military heritage. There is a real sense of serenity here which makes it a good place to reflect within the city precinct. Though not particularly large in area, it makes for an interesting and thought-provoking walk. I highly recommend you stop here.

Brisbane: Story Bridge

After our walk around the memorial, we noticed we were heading towards the Story Bridge so decided to continue on foot towards the bridge. As the weather looked like it was going to hold up we decided to continue the journey on bikes. The city is full of bikes to hire, as like many cities they have an initiative to encourage people to cycle. The first hurdle to using the bikes was finding a helmet for both of us. Though the bikes to hire should have them, very few of them did! Legally you have to wear one and every bike should have one. Luckily, we managed to find 2 as we searched from bike stop to bike stop.

Whilst travelling I have rekindled my childhood love of cycling and found that I adore cycling. The only thing that I did find slightly irritating about the rental of these bikes is that we had to dock them back in every 30 minutes. However, I do have to say this is pretty easy as there are bike docks all around the city. Once at each dock, all you have to do is just type in your day code but this often took a few minutes for it to register that we had returned the bikes before we could get our next bike out.

Don’t let this put you off though, this really is a fantastic way to take in the city and its surroundings. There is an abundance of cycle paths too! We were able to go down to the riverside and cycle along it. We also took a ride along Kangaroo Cliffs, which had a sort of parkway running alongside it and some absolutely beautiful flowers to be seen! Though, with flowers and trees around, this does inevitably mean spiders, and we saw some GIANT ones! Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of these as I wasn’t willing to stick around them for too long.

Once at the Story Bridge, which took some uphill riding, we decided we would go across it on the bikes. I have to be honest, I was pretty exhausted after this, this was quite the bike ride. This was so worth it! The view from the bridge was amazing!! After this intense leg work out, we cycled back to one of the docks which is just out the front of our accommodation, perfect! Like I said last week, our first accommodation really was in a prime spot!

Brisbane: City Beach

A short walk from the Brisbane sign, you can find the city beach. It is so bizarre heading to the city to go to the beach but it is so cool here. You are surrounded by sand and then as you look in the distance tall buildings. It’s truly awesome here, it’s great that two contracting worlds have come together so beautifully. I love that Brisbane has this laid back city vibe and it doesn’t feel too crowded or over populated. It seems, in the words of Goldilocks, ‘just right’.

Near the city there is also a small walkway area that makes for a nice short stroll. There’s this beautiful shrub walkway and around you are trees with white flowers, like the ones you see people put in their hair.

Even when we visited the beach on a week day, the beach area was busy. It isn’t the largest of beach areas and can fill up quickly but we manged to find a cosy little spot to throw our towel in. We relaxed by the water and soaked up the sun. We even had a dip in the water, which had warmed up nicely. If getting over the fact there was a beach in the middle of the city wasn’t enough to wrap my head around, I then had to get used to the fact that once in the water, there was sand under foot!

Brisbane: Ferry day trip to Moreton Island

As we were only a few hours on a ferry trip to Moreton Island, we decided we would go and take a look. We were up early to catch a taxi to the Wharf Ferry in Pinkenba and we were greeted by the most beautiful sunset. The sky was a pretty mix of reds, oranges and pink as the sun was rising. I love a sunset! Unfortunately, I cannot tell you much about the views on board the ferry. As the ferry departed at 7am, I was, as they say, out for the count.

My first impressions of Moreton were great. It looked great. It had clear waters stretching along with no end in sight. But there were signs it could be commercial, as soon as we stepped off the boat the staff wanted to take your picture – that’s always a potential sign of OTT (Over The Top) tourist danger ahead.

Deciding we would try to avoid the tourism, we headed along the beach towards Tangalooma Wrecks. Though we had them in our sights, the walk took far longer than we had anticipated and it was almost as if we were getting nowhere fast. We finally made it to the wrecks and there many 4x4s there. After a few minutes resting our legs, we decided to make our way out to the shipwreck.

Compared to the other water we had been in recently, there was a slight increase in the water temperature here. I managed to immerse myself with a minute, a new record. Once in, we began the swim out to the wreck. There were so many little fish on the way so the way out is a great opportunity to take in the fishy views whilst snorkelling. We’d made it about half way and the water was getting much deeper. A man stopped us to say that we wouldn’t make it out and would need flippers. Admittedly, the current was strong here but with a little determination and will power, we made it out. However, once at the wrecks all I wanted to do was rest but we couldn’t hold onto the wrecks as they were metal, so we found a nearby float.

***TOP TIP***

Bring your flippers to Moreton Island! It’ll make the swim out much easier and more enjoyable!

We explored the wrecks and it was clear the fish absolute love swimming and eating off of them. The fish were flitting about so close to the surface. We were also extremely lucky that as we swam around one of the wrecks a turtle that was coming up for air appeared. Shortly after this, as if we weren’t already feeling happy enough, we came across a big Lion fish – like I said, there’s such amazing fish life here! This really was the highlight of our trip to Moreton.

After all the swimming we decided to head to the food services, here we could dry out and have some grub and a drink. What we hadn’t realised is that we were here on a ‘Cruise day’, which meant it’s a day where the people from the cruise come here and they put on entertainment, which wasn’t quite up my street but entertaining none-the-less.

All that we had to do then was head back to the booth near the ferry to collect our return tickets and then board the ferry. It wasn’t long before we were setting off for our 4pm departure. The day had gone so quick!

***TOP TIP***

Search around for prices before booking a trip to Moreton. After a quick bit of browsing the net, I managed to found a deal that included the ferry ticket, lunch and a drink voucher for the same price that some places were charging JUST for the ferry.

What’s it like to work here?

Though Brisbane does have free WIFI in the city, as I wrote in my last blog, I did not have free WIFI in my new accommodation. Again, this meant relying on my sim and using my phone as a hotspot, which seemed to work just fine.

What is handy, is that you can always bring your work to the beach. As the beach is so close to the main city, you can access the WIFI. That means you can chill and work at the same time! I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing – what are your thoughts?

We only took a day trip to Moreton Island, but often people spend a day or so there. We had next to no signal all day, so this is definitely one place for making the most of and not working on.

What’s up next?

Next week you can look forward to a change of scenery as I head to beachy Byron Bay and the quiet suburb known for being one of the coolest areas on the Sunny coast, Mooloolaba.

I’d love to hear your stories so if you want to share your stories with me or want to know how I coped with working and travelling send me an email to - travellingteacher@iqbar.net .

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